Engineering Cyanobacteria for the Production of Lightweight Materials

Future space exploration will demand the development of highly efficient technologies to recycle readily available resources (e.g. in situ resource utilization, ISRU) for the sustainable production of indispensable supplies. One attractive technology is to synthesize target products by leveraging the metabolic potential of microbes. While microbial production of food, fuels, drugs, and nutraceuticals has been extensively studied1-5, the production of materials is much less explored, but will be of great value to future NASA space exploration missions by reducing the need for resupply missions and decrease launch weights, increasing the feasibility of long-distance missions and extraterrestrial colonization.
The objective of this project is to address the limitations in microbial production of protein-based materials and to engineer a cyanobacteria platform for manufacturing lightweight, high-performance materials using resources available during space exploration (i.e. light energy and CO2). In this project, we have developed multiple innovative microbial biosynthetic systems. Using these systems, we have produced ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) spider silk proteins and titin polymers that were spun into lightweight, high strength, and high toughness fibers. These proteins and fibers can be used in various NASA applications, such as parachutes, high-strength ropes, shuttle repairs, insulation, clothing, seals, packing materials, etc.
This project has resulted in 4 peer-reviewed research papers (1 in revision), 1 manuscript under preparation, and 1 filed patent application.